Wednesday, October 29, 2014

How would you create a virtual screen for a laptop? ie, something that would shimmer into existence, show your images, keep light from bleeding through from the back, and disappear when you turn the laptop off?

Friday, October 24, 2014

It is due to people like these, and others, that I have a pretty good view of French people.

I was nervous meeting these folks -- except for the woman, I'd never talked to any of them. They were warm and hospitable, though the youngest didn't seem to understand my French very well.

This is the friend who invited me to her wedding. When I pointed out, at the time, that I couldn't make heads or tails of the French being spoken by one group at the reception, she laughed and said They're from Israel -- they're speaking Hebrew.

This friend, and her family, live in a quiet apartment that's only a block away from the bustling tourist area of Montmartre. I told her that when she moves, I want that apartment. I was not entirely joking.

Good things come in small packages. Smart things, too. This friend is a doctoral student at the Sorbonne.

Lille is another pretty city that gave me the feeling of quiet efficiency coupled with history. It was pleasant to walk around the downtown area, just looking at people. My friend asked if I wanted to go into a bookstore. I said yes, heading towards one, and she shook her head. That's the expensive one, she said, and took me about a block away to a smaller but still well-stocked one. Still a bit of a shock to see books in English labeled as Livres Étrangers. (Foreign books)

We went to a local restaurant called Les Trois Brasseurs (the three brewmeisters, I think). It was kind of a burgers and beer place, and that's one of the vats that they make the beer in.

But not just burgers.

They insisted that I had to try Le Merveilleux, a hyperdense dessert. As you can see, I didn't make much of a dent in it.

This, of course, is the entrance from the Lille metro to the Lille-Europe TGV station
Yes, really.

The Lille Europe Metro/TGV station (there are two -- the second, Lille Flandres, is just across the street.). Nice, but if it's chilly out, wear a jacket -- the cold winds blow right through it.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The nearest big city to Thourie (as far as I know!) is Rennes. I liked it. The place was clean, the populace was friendly (really -- as part of an exercise, I had to stop multiple people and ask directions to a well-known building or structure. Every one of them was willing to do it. Once, when I tried and failed to interest two people who were wearing headphones, a woman came up to me and said Sir, are you having some problems?) and the whole place just felt approachable. Now, maybe that's because it was the bustling downtown, and maybe the rest is awful -- but I'd go back.

Most of these are photos that we had to take to prove that we actually had found the places we were tasked to find. One of them, not so much.

Even the city logo has a clean look.

Yeah, that caught my eye. My teacher was not amused.

Champs Libres appeared to be a kind of shopping mall, but very small.

This is the office of the mayor. Rennes was having an exhibit of photographs taken in the area during World War Two, and unlike here, people seemed actively interested in looking at and discussing the images.

Another example of something that's actually fascinating -- they were excavating and restoring a structure that apparently was originally built in the middle ages.

It didn't even occur to me to take a photo until they were breaking it down, but this was a bike training rink where a bunch of young kids rolled under the guidance of local cops. One person told me that on weekends, its a bustling open market.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

This is the small gîte that I stayed in during my French immersion class, near the tiny village of Thourie (about 30 minutes south of Rennes). The accommodations were comfortable but, as you can see, pretty basic. I came to the conclusion that gîte'' is the French word for 'this place is pretty old, and none of the appliances were purchased after 1955.' Still, the experience was novel.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Monday, October 20, 2014

When I was in line for Customs clearance at Dulles, I noticed a sign for Global Entry users. I had bought that, thinking it would help when I was leaving, but it didn't -- I still had to take my shoes off. I followed the sign and found myself at a bank of six kiosks, each of which had a reader to scan my passport, and a pad where I could press four fingers for a fingerprint comparison. I looked into a scanner, which said that yes, I appeared to be the same person. It asked me the standard customs forms questions, and then punched out a receipt - which let me bypass the hordes of people getting off the plane who were waiting to meet a customs agent. Hordes? Fun fact: an A380 can hold from 500 to 800 people. And once I got my bag, that same card let me have this discussion with an agent:

So it was pretty good. Except for the getting the bags part. 500 to 800 people, all clustering around a carousel, looking desperately for their bags. Lots of uniquely colored bags, uniquely shaped bags, sliding by -- I still remember the one with the bright pink plastic shell, or the one with the bright yellow tape wrapped around it that said THIS ISN'T YOUR BAG.But for the hundreds of pretty-much-the-same bags? Yeah, good luck. After a while I started to convince myself that my bag wasn't the color I thought, at all.

Why aren't luggage tags available that will, say, respond to a pocket sized transponder when they're sliding into range, within about ten feet of you? SURELY that's possible?

Even when I wake up in the middle of the night and think this room looks like my bedroom, but it can't be, because I am in France.....besides, I don't know how to say in French the name of every single thing that I see.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Being sick, lost, alone in a foreign city, and not fluent in the language is a scary combination. Having a friend who will search for you, bring you to her home (several kilometers from where Google Maps assured me it was located), feed you, and put you a taxi for your hotel is inexpressibly comforting.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

I am capable of not realizing things that are almost intuitively obvious to other people. For example, that not everyone who uses an iPad does it because they are Apple groupies. The stuff may be overpriced, but it works. I've seen adults and kids use them in the last week, and they just work, quickly and effectively. Similarly, the tiny Apple tablet with detachable keyboard isn't the toy it appears to be. It works.

Other points of obliviousness relate to France, this trip, and me. I'm in the second week, and now that I'm not in that class any more, I'm much happier. When they said that it would be pretty much French all the time, I didn't realize that they meant exactly what they said. My head didn't ache, but it got very old very quickly to have to hesitate before a third of my sentences. I'm glad that's over. I'm also glad to be done with the 'authentic food of Bretagne'. The others in the class gobbled it up, but as for me, not only was it inedible, the one time I did try it, my stomach revolted for much of the next few days (very glad I brought Pepto Bismol - its illegal here without a French prescription).

Now I am in Lille, staying for two days with a conversation partner, her partner, and their terrific kids, Alixe and Camille, and in addition to their other qualities, they like pizza.

Would I go back to Bretagne again? Absolutely. I very much liked the accessibility of the city of Rennes, which is beautiful (HINT: if you go, use a way-small suitcase, because the storage area on the TGV is way-tiny. And if you rent a car, think Volkswagen bug size, or less.)

I wasn't actually sure that visiting the people here in Lille was a good idea, but now that I am here, I'm very glad I came, because they're very nice. I am very glad to have met them.

In two days I get to hustle/squeeze with my (relatively) massive bag onto the TGV and 90 minutes later hustle/squeeze off in Paris, where I'll meet with between one and five friends. Looking forward to that - and my return to the land of decent burgers and cold water in restaurants.

Ive learned that hyper rural French gites can be nice unless you are totally dependant on someone else for transport, which means you can't get away!

Did practice navigation by asking various people in Rennes for directions. Most of them were pretty nice, and the city is pretty. We are apparently going back there today. Unless the rain doesn't stop. It rains a lot in Bretagne.

But overall, I'm ready to get the hell out of here! (see transport, above). Four days and a wakeup....

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

If I wasn't bringing five books for various people, I would be able to get my socks into the suitcase. (I have this enormous list of everything I need - documents, gifts, electronics, med stuff, clothing, toiletries - just so when the question arose of DID I REMEMBER TO PACK...., I could look at it and say Yeah, its in the outer pouch of the bigger bag. I was feeling quite smug until I noticed that the list didn't include socks.)

I could put two or three of the books into the carry on bag, but it's a funny thing; unlike socks and stuff, they don't bend. Not a real problem for the airplane, but the TGV? Yeah, could be. So suddenly I'm thinking you know, you COULD just mail some of them from the US. . You don't HAVE to physically hand them over. And in fact two of them, for the children of my friend in Greasque, HAVE to be mailed, because I'm not going anywhere south of Paris. So other than the novel experience of going to a French post office -- je voudrais envoyer cette boite, s'il vous plait. Oui, monsieur - and then he asks the French equivalent of what class, anything breakable, are you sending liquids.... and I do my Harpo Marx impression. Yeah, maybe mailing from the US would be a good idea for those two books And using the bigger suitcase -- its not massive, by any means -- maybe that would be a good idea,too. Makes the carry on more collapsible. Gives me room for souvenirs.

Just that - I know this is silly -- I kind of wanted to do it with the smallest of the bags. Just to prove to myself that I could. I'm not 22, I'm not skinny, I have big feet, I can't wear the same clothes four days running -- but still. Just to prove that I could.

Ever notice how those people who do the I packed for a two month trip using just this small suitcase videos are usually skinny? And can wear the same clothes for three or four days without a problem? Socks, toiletries, shirts. I suppose I could save some space by getting thong underwear, but I don't think they've made it in my size since Ringling Brothers went out of business....

I was just thinking wow, four days till I leave, five till I have to start speaking French all the time. Man, that's soon.

And then I realized it's three days. Three days till I arrive at the airport at 6AM after an 8 hour flight, hang around for five hours, get a train to a new city, get shuttled to a tiny town that none of my French friends has ever heard of, meet new people there (two from Australia, one of whom is fluent in French, and one from Germany), have to live with them in a small gite, have to buy things from French-speaking storekeepers, have to figure out how to cook in a strange kitchen. And then after the class is done, have to take the TGV to a city I've never been to, to meet people I've never met before, and live with them for two days. Then return to the big city, trying to dodge the pickpockets (because there is no way they're going to see me as a poor native!) while trying not to get lost on the Metro.